More putting out fires with petrol:
There have been many press reports this week of the recent "discovery" that Dihydrocodeine, in the form of DF118's, is at least as effective as Methadone in "treating" opiate dependency. This is no discovery at all - all the addicts that I have mentioned this story to have yawned politely and made comments like "now tell me something that I don't know".
Of course any opiate or opioid drug will serve to assuage the symptoms of opiate withdrawal - whether or not giving an opiate user such a drug constitutes "treatment" is another matter. It seems that if a doctor in a drug service hands out Methadone for example then that is "treatment" - providing of course that reams of paperwork have been filled in and certain procedures have been followed.
If an addict was to buy the same amount of the same drug on the street - then this constitutes dealing and the supplier is liable to lengthy prison sentence - up to life imprisonment in fact!
In other words if a doctor does it then it's treatment, harm reduction etc and a good thing but if I do it then it's a very bad thing. Of course the addict's body would not differentiate between the "good" methadone and "bad" methadone - it would react exactly the same and the effects would be the same.
Coming back to DF118's - Doctors in the UK seem more than happy to hand this medication out like sweeties, I can remember doing a straw poll in a prison where I worked that showed that the incidence of back pain requiring Dihydrocodeine was around 20 times the expected average figure in the community.
On one hand these were young men in their 20's and 30's on the other hand many of them had a long history of drug dependency, however they all knew that Dihydrocodeine was an opiate type drug and they were not taking it to treat their addictions either, more to feed them.
The fact is that these drugs have changed hands on the streets for many years - with most of the supply being diverted from legally prescribed sources. Addicts have known about this, so have many drugs workers, counsellors etc.
I find it rather alarming that a "scientist" discovers what has been obvious to everyone else for years and suddenly it's a newsworthy piece of "new research".
So much for learning from our clients.
Of course any opiate or opioid drug will serve to assuage the symptoms of opiate withdrawal - whether or not giving an opiate user such a drug constitutes "treatment" is another matter. It seems that if a doctor in a drug service hands out Methadone for example then that is "treatment" - providing of course that reams of paperwork have been filled in and certain procedures have been followed.
If an addict was to buy the same amount of the same drug on the street - then this constitutes dealing and the supplier is liable to lengthy prison sentence - up to life imprisonment in fact!
In other words if a doctor does it then it's treatment, harm reduction etc and a good thing but if I do it then it's a very bad thing. Of course the addict's body would not differentiate between the "good" methadone and "bad" methadone - it would react exactly the same and the effects would be the same.
Coming back to DF118's - Doctors in the UK seem more than happy to hand this medication out like sweeties, I can remember doing a straw poll in a prison where I worked that showed that the incidence of back pain requiring Dihydrocodeine was around 20 times the expected average figure in the community.
On one hand these were young men in their 20's and 30's on the other hand many of them had a long history of drug dependency, however they all knew that Dihydrocodeine was an opiate type drug and they were not taking it to treat their addictions either, more to feed them.
The fact is that these drugs have changed hands on the streets for many years - with most of the supply being diverted from legally prescribed sources. Addicts have known about this, so have many drugs workers, counsellors etc.
I find it rather alarming that a "scientist" discovers what has been obvious to everyone else for years and suddenly it's a newsworthy piece of "new research".
So much for learning from our clients.
Labels: addiction, DF118, dihydrocodeine, drugs, methadone, treatment
posted by anaddict @ 6:11 PM
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